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Sunday, March 29, 2015

Experiments with Flight: Wright Brothers National Memorial


After walking the field that Orville and Wilbur Wright flew over on December 17, 1903, I wanted to see the process the brothers went through to develop the 1903 Wright Flyer.





Eric & I walked to the
Visitors Center to learn
about Orville & Wilbur
Wright's experiments
with flight.









Orville & Wilbur Wright
ran a bicycle repair shop
in Dayton, Ohio.

They honed their mechanical
skills there.





The business provided the funding necessary for aviation experiments.  According to Ed Sines, a friend, Orville and Wilbur spent about $1,000.00 on all their experiments from 1899 to 1903.






Photos taken at the
airfield show the 
living quarters.











Orville & Wilbur learned
a lot by building & flying
their glider in 1902.

This is a replica.





They flew the glider 1,000 times in the fall of 1902.  After conquering free flight, Orville and Wilbur started work to solve the problems of powered flight.  They looked at car engines, but didn't find one that would meet their needs at a reasonable cost.






The brothers built a 200
pound engine to power
the propellers of their
plane.












The gas tank & water
reservoir that cooled
the engine on the

This is a replica.








Everything was ready...

Orville flew the first powered
airplane on December 17, 1903.






The brothers took turns for three flights that followed. Wilbur piloted the fourth and longest flight was 59 seconds long and covered 852 feet.

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